Patricia Mamona points to recovery to return to top level after Olympics

Portugal’s Patricia Mamona, silver medalist in the triple jump at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, said in a statement on Friday that her knee has fully recovered to compete again after Paris 2024.

The athlete’s consultant issued a statement explaining the injuries that kept the athlete out of Paris 2024, stressing that “having achieved her dream of participating in the Olympic Games and improving on the result achieved in Tokyo, the athlete is now focused on determining the next steps in treating the knee injury with the goal of returning to 100% training to be able to compete at the highest level.”

At the Tokyo 2020 Games in 2021, Mammona won the silver medal, losing to Venezuelan Yulimar Rojas, who is also absent from the French capital due to injury.

“In March 2023, athlete Patricia Mamona was injured during the European Athletics Indoor Championships in Istanbul, where she still won a bronze medal,” the statement begins with details.

At the time, the 35-year-old Sporting athlete admitted that she defended her European Athletics Champion title in Istanbul on March 4, 2023, a day after suffering an injury in qualifying.

That day he won a bronze medal in the third final of a major competition he has competed in due to injury, such as the Eugene 2022 World Outdoor Championships in the United States and then the Munich 2022 European Championships.

Mamona has since missed the 2023 World Championships in Budapest, later admitting in an interview with Lusa that he feels better than he did in the run-up to Tokyo 2020.

“Although I think I’m mentally strong enough, there’s always the question of whether we can come back and get back to our best form. Right now I’m better than I was at the same time two years ago. Even compared to the year of the Games, I’m better,” Mamona, who was also absent from the Roma2024 European Championships last June, told Luce on November 14, 2023.

Now, more than eight months later, the fears he also expressed have come true, and his absence from the Portuguese Championships in Coimbra at the weekend has confirmed the absence of Paris 2024.

“It’s also a kind of ‘hunger’ that I had, the desire to train and not finish the training completely, and the feeling that I gave it all. These mental ups and downs helped me get up because I was at the bottom. Now I’m happy, of course, but I don’t want to launch too many rockets because the rockets have to be launched on the right day, which I hope will be at the Olympic Games in Paris in 2024,” the national record holder said in a program on the sidelines of the Web Summit (January 15 in Tokyo, 2021).

According to a statement from the Sporting press service today, Mamona “has been struggling with a chronic injury that, despite all the treatment and efforts the athlete has undergone, has since affected her training and performance, preventing her from training at 100 pounds or competing.”

And “a new knee injury recently worsened his situation, making it impossible for him to participate in the competitions necessary for Olympic qualification.”

“Athlete Patricia Mamona remains determined and confident in her recovery, hoping to bring joy to Portuguese athletics and its fans again,” reads the aforementioned statement, in which the jumper wishes her “greatest success” to Portugal’s mission at the 2024 Games in Paris.